Presents Brooklyn Goes Hollywood Saturday, January 15, 2005, 8:00 p.m. Brooklyn Academy of Music John Mauceri, conductor HERRMANN Prelude to North by Northwest (1911-1975) COPLAND I Compiled FREED The Heiress - Suite (1900-1990) SCHOENBERG Chamber Symphony No. 2, Op. 38 (1874-1951 ) Adagio Con fuoco -Intermission- HERRMANN I MAUCERI Psycho - A Narrative for String Orchestra SCHOENBERG Theme and Variations, Op. 43b GERSHWIN I KRASKER Shall We Dance-Watch Your Step Ballet (1898-1937) (New York Premiere) -Epilogue- JOHN CORIGLIANO Altered States-Love Theme (1938- ) Please join us immediately following the performance for FOR GOOD MEASURE, a post-concert talk with John Mauceri moderated by Brooklyn Philharmonic Artistic Advisor, Evans Mirageas. Season Sponsor HSBC Bank USA Yamaha is the Official Piano of the Brooklyn Philharmonic 2004-2005 Season Print Media Sponsor: Courier-Life Publications 2004-2005 Season Printing Sponsor: CF Group 7 BROOKLYN philharmonic 50th ANNIVERSARY SEASON NOTES ON THE PROGRAM By Evans Mirageas, Brooklyn Philharmonic Artistic Advisor Brooklyn Goes Hollywood - BERNARD HERRMANN (1911-1975): An Introduction Prelude to North by Northwest Tonight's concert celebrates another aspect of The collaboration between New Yorker Bernard the enormous creativity Brooklyn has given the Herrmann and Londoner Alfred Hitchcock has world. The infant film industry found fertile entered the realm of legend. Their highly suc­ ground in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. In cessful run of films together included Psycho, the early years of the 20th century tiny studios, Mamie, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, often no more than storefronts, dotted many of and North by Northwest. Herrmann was famous the boroughs. With success came the need for for producing the unexpected-unusual orchestra­ bigger facilities, outdoor locations and more con­ tions, innovative use of recording technology sistent weather. California beckoned and even­ and most of all, music that may seem to be tually dominated the film industry but it all began superficially unsuited to a scene, but when here! viewed with the image is absolutely right. Live and recorded music was an important Such is the case with the Prelude or Main adjunct to the early si lent films. Curiously, when Title to their 1959 film, North by Northwest. 'talkies' began in the late 1920's, there was ini­ Hitchcock supposedly wanted a tial resistance to specially written and performed 'Gershwinesque' jazzy opening sequence to music, integrated into the soundtrack of the film. convey the hustle and bustle of New York. Eventually, music won out and quickly became a Herrmann responded with nothing less than a vital part of the overall soundtrack. While this is Spanish Fandango (!) whose nervous energy not the place for a detailed history of film music perfectly sets up the thriller to come. As was the it is sufficient to say that the potential fame and case in many of his later films, Hitchcock himself fortune of writing for films inspired generations appears on screen in a cameo moment. In of composers who have dedicated a great deal North by Northwest it occurs during this Prelude of their creativity to film music, some exclusively as we see 'Hitch' run to try and catch a bus just and others as part of a va ried career in music. before it pu lls away. He is too late. The doors Brooklyn has given the world its share of these slam in his face and the bus drives off! creative artists. Tonight we celebrate Brooklyn's own Aaron Copland, John Corigliano and AARON COPLAND (1900-1990): George Gershwin as well as Manhattan-born The Heiress - Suite Bernard Herrmann, who went to school in the (compiled by Arthur Freed) Bronx and is buried in Brooklyn. And yes, Arnold Aaron Copland first tried his hand at film scoring Schoenberg, who was certainly not born in any in 1939 with a documentary film ca lled The City, of the Five Boroughs but read on for that curi­ shown at The New York World's Fair. He would ous, yet potent connection. go on to write several more scores including, Of We are pleased to welcome back to the podi­ Mice and Men, The Red Pony, Our Town and um John Mauceri who holds the positions of North Star, and his Oscar winning score for The Music Director both at The Pittsburgh Opera and Heiress. This 1949 film, directed by William the Hollywood Bowl Symphony. Mr. Mauceri has Wyler and starring Olivia de Havilland, devoted much of his career to championing music Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson is con­ of composers who were banned or murdered by sidered by most to be Copland's finest work for Hitler's Third Reich as well as being a passionate the screen. It is haunting, evocative and appo­ advocate of the rich legacy of great music written site to the plot, adapted from Henry James for the stage and screen. Mr. Mauceri first con­ novella Washington Square. Director Wyler later ducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic in our recounted that he considered it quite a coup to September 11 commemorative concert in 2002. 'land' Copland as his composer, especially in the '8 NOTES ON THE PROGRAM nervous 'Red Scare' atmosphere of the late dates Schoenberg's development of the twelve­ 1940's. Copland was among the hundreds of tone method of composition. In 1911 and 1916, artists wrongfully accused of Communist Party Schoenberg returned to the Second Chamber membership and forced to testify in Congress (in Symphony, but cou ld not complete it. Finall y, in 1953, the same year his music was pu lled from 1939, at the urging of his friend , the Metropolitan the Eisenhower Inauguration festivities for politi­ Opera conductor Fritz Stiedry, Schoenberg cal reasons). In 1949, Wyler had to lobby vigor­ examined the first movement and set to work on ously with the Paramount 'brass' to hire completing the Symphony in Hollywood. Th e Copland. In addition to Copland's Academy resulting two-movement work is a tightly argued Award for 'Scoring of a Dramatic Picture' as it score, integrating the warm , rich harmonies of was called then, Olivia de Havilland won for late Romanticism with transparent textures and Best Actress and Edith Head for Costume a rhythmically lively, almost neo-classic spirit. Design. Stiedry gave the world premiere at a concert of the Orchestra of the Friends of New Music on ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951): December 15, 1940 in Carnegie Hall. Chamber Symphony No.2, Op. 38 ' As an interesting sidelight, Schoenberg's When planning this concert John Mauceri sug­ presence in Los Angeles was felt in film music gested we include two 'Hollywood' compositions fairly quickly. Schoenberg himself may have not by Arnold Schoenberg. At first the connection written film scores, but his pupils Alfred between Bernard Herrmann, George Gershwin Newman, David Raksin and others felt inspired and Arnold Schoenberg was not clear to this to include atonal and twelve-tone music in their writer. Mr. Mauceri quickly explained that scores. As John Mauceri points out, much of Gershwin and Schoenberg were great personal Stothart's original music for The Wizard of Oz is friends and that Bernard Herrmann was an highly chromatic and atonal, perfectly su ited to early champion on Schoenberg's music, con­ scarier moments in Oz. ducting this Second Chamber Symphony as part of his CBS radio series in the 1940's-at a time BERNARD HERRMANN: when very little of Schoenberg's music was Psycho - A Narrative for String Orchestra being played anywhere. (reconstruction by John Mauceri) Arnold Schoenberg called Hollywood home In 1999 when John Mauceri was invited to con­ from 1934 until his death in 1951. He was one duct a concert celebrating the centenary of of the many 'Exiles in Paradise' an illustrious Alfred Hitchcock it was on ly natural that he group of refugees from Hitler's Europe, a list would turn to the path-breaking music Bernard that included Alma Mahler (widow of the com­ Herrmann wrote for Psycho. However, when poser), conductor Otto Klemperer and the Mauceri examined the score sent by the pub­ philosopher Thomas Mann. While it never came lisher it was clear that the music usually made to pass, Schoenberg was almost certainly available for live performance was only a set of approached to write film music, most likely for 'cues'. For his famous 1968 recording of a Suite the 1937 MGM film The Good Earth. Sketches from Psycho for Decca Phase Four, Bernard for the music were begun, but negotiations Herrmann took the original motives from his film broke down and the score was eventually hand­ score and wrote a continuous composition for ed over to the estimable American composer strings. It is this version we hear on tonight's Herbert Stothart, who himself would go on to concert which received its world concert pre­ win an Oscar for The Wizard of Oz in 1939.* miere with John Mauceri and the Hollywood When Schoenberg arrived in Hollywood, he Bowl Orchestra in the Dorothy Chandler had in his possession the first movement of an Pavilion , Los Angeles in 1999. unfinished Chamber Symphony, begun in 1906, Psycho nearly instantly became a cult classic immediately after the completion of the First upon its release in 1960. It is rightly considered Chamber Symphony, Op. 9. This music pre- to be one of Hitchcock's best films , and one of q BROOKLYN philharmonic 50th ANNIVERSARY SEASON Herrmann's finest achievements. However, this swagger reminiscent of the genuinely tonal film and its music did not have an easy birth. music of his dear friend George Gershwin, Herrmann once told director Brian de Palma, "I especially the last variation. remember sitting in a screening room after see­ In the end , the world premiere of the original ing the rough cut of Psycho.